


Meet Me On All Hallows' Eve

by Iron_Eirlyssa (Eirlyssa)



Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Halloween, Halloween Costumes, M/M, MHEA Holiday Movie 2019, Pre-Relationship, Prince T'Challa (Marvel), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 10:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21269303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eirlyssa/pseuds/Iron_Eirlyssa
Summary: Only a few days in, T'Challa is already done with New York and everything the guide is trying to tell him. So he slips away, only to finally start enjoying his visit when he meets a young man around his age and the children he's watching.





	Meet Me On All Hallows' Eve

**Author's Note:**

> A day late, but I hope the Halloween spirit isn't completely gone yet! This story fills prompt 7 for the Marvel HEA Holiday Movie Challenge - I hope you enjoy it!

🎃 🕸 🕷 🦇 **Meet Me On All Hallows’ Eve** 🦇 🕷 🕸 🎃 

The more time T'Challa spent in New York, the more he had to regretfully admit that perhaps his stepmother had been right. It was cold, and dreary, and he was regretting having insisted on going.

His father, of course, had been all for it. He'd been in favor of becoming more involved with the world for years, and it had been more than clear how proud he was that T'Challa appeared to be just as interested. So the King had made sure to have all the arrangements made for his son to spend some time in New York.

Time he was currently regretting.

It hadn’t even been a week, but already he couldn’t wait to go back home again. He’d heard a lot about New York, and while most of the information he’d found had been positive, that hadn’t been his own experience. Especially in contrast to Wakanda, it appeared cold and impersonal.

So far, the only day he’d truly enjoyed somewhat was the one where the guide had shown them around Central Park.

As they passed through another street lined with buildings so tall he could hardly see the sky anymore - not that there was much of it, with the clouds - he decided he was tired of it. Tired of the city, tired of the formal, droning introductions to everything, tired of the way it all just seemed like _too much_ and yet too little.

All of his training had not been for naught as he slipped into one of the many stores as they walked up to yet another traffic light that only seemed to dictate the movements of _some_ of the traffic.

He had noticed that a lot of the corner stores seemed to have another entrance right around the corner, which was what he used in order to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. A few quick taps meant that his kimoyo beads could no longer be used to track him. It didn’t take him long after that to create some distance, especially when he noticed a metro station nearby.

It was time to explore some by himself.

🎃 🕸 🕷 🦇 **Meet Me On All Hallows’ Eve** 🦇 🕷 🕸 🎃 

Some hours later, T’Challa was no longer certain that had been the best idea. He _had_ at least found a somewhat less busy part of New York, which was a relief, but he had no idea where he was. Not to mention that he had thought that the spiders and pumpkins and horrifying creatures had been part of the more crowded parts of the city.

Instead, it appeared people had decorated their houses in a similar way. There were corpses in various states of decay, spider webs and bats wherever he could see, and squash fruits that had been cut to depict diverse faces that were backlit with candles to appear more eerie.

During the day it hadn’t been as noticeable, but now that it was getting dark, it all seemed more prominent than it had before.

Slowly but surely, the streets also started filling up a little - there were a few adults, but it was mostly younger children dressed unlike anything T’Challa had seen so far. Some were scary, some were funny, and a few he had no idea what they were supposed to be.

Just as he was starting to wonder if something was wrong somehow, or if he was missing something important, a voice spoke up behind him. “Why aren’t you dressed up, sir?” It was a young girl, perhaps about five. She was wearing a sand-colored coat over brown clothes, her face had been painted green and two green, triangular ears had been attached to a green headdress that he had been informed was referred to as a beanie.

“I ah… Should I be?” he asked, looking around surreptitiously to see who she belonged with. From everything he had heard and seen of New York, there was no way any parent would allow their child to walk around, unsupervised and in the dark.

Sure enough, not too far away there was a young man, around T’Challa’s own age or a little younger, with four other children who appeared slightly older than the one addressing him. All of them appeared to be watching him interact with the girl attentively.

“‘Cause it’s _Halloween_.” She appeared somewhat offended, puffing up as much as possible when that small. While he was aware he should probably not find that as adorable as he did, he couldn’t help his indulgent smile. “_Everyone’s_ gotta be dressed up.”

“I apologize, then. I was unaware.” At least it explained the decorations and the clothing, though he still had no idea whatsoever what this ‘Halloween’ was supposed to be.

“Thought so,” she said decisively, nodding. “You look lost.”

Before he could do more than smile, the others of her group walked up. “So, you figured out why he wasn’t dressed up?” The boy asking was wearing dark pants and a dark sleeveless jacket over a cream long-sleeved shirt. There was even a gun holster at his side, though the ‘gun’ in it didn’t look like anything T’Challa was familiar with.

“He didn’t even _know_,” she informed the rest of the group, long-suffering.

All five of the children turned to him, looking some mixture of incredulous and exasperated. His experience with Shuri, who was around the same age as the girl who had first spoken to him, meant he knew better than to show too much weakness.

In all of it, he’d nearly forgotten their escort, who ended up unable to keep from snickering just a little. “C’mon, minions. No judging - some people have a different culture and might not know about our celebrations.” Looking at him, T’Challa found himself trapped in eyes that reminded him of sunsets in Wakanda, and he had to force himself to look away to see the rest of his costume. Which… appeared to be a robot in a dress?

“There’s people who don’t celebrate Halloween?” another child asked, this one dressed in cream-colored clothes only offset by a darker brown belt.

“Want to know a secret?” the gorgeous robot in a dress asked them, and they all leaned in to hear, eyes wide with curiosity. “There isn’t a _single_ holiday that’s celebrated by _everyone_.”

This had all of them gasping with astonishment. “Even _Christmas_?” asked yet another, wearing a fully golden outfit that made him look rather like a robot.

“Even Christmas,” their escort nodded.

At that, five horrified looks turned to T’Challa, who only barely managed not to step back. “You do know about Christmas, right?” asked the boy in the cream-colored outfit. He sounded like he might just about cry if the answer was ‘no’.

“I am familiar with the concept,” he agreed. There had been some information on common celebrations around the world that he had studied, and while Christmas had been included, Halloween had not. “But what do you celebrate with Halloween, if I may ask?”

He had to stifle his laughter as, with that question, four of the children looked at one another in askance. “Ehm… Candy?” came the eventual answer from the boy in the sleeveless jacket.

The fifth child sighed, and while they were wearing all-black clothes and their face was covered with a black mask, T’Challa just _knew_ there was an eyeroll happening behind that mask. “It’s a celebration to honor the dead. The darker half of the year starts, and people thought it meant they were closer to the dead now,” she informed all of them, sounding absolutely certain of herself.

“But then why the candy?” the golden robot asked, looking down at the squash-shaped bucket in his hand, a scary face printed on it in black. It already had a small layer of candy gathered up.

It appeared that the masked girl didn’t know that either, since she turned to their escort along with the others. He just chuckled kindly. “Well, it’s a bit of a story - how about I tell you while we’re trick-or-treating?” he offered. Then, he looked back at T’Challa, who couldn’t quite bring himself to look away. “On Halloween, we go by the houses and call out ‘trick or treat’ to the people living there. They either give us a treat - ” he nodded at the buckets the children were holding “ - or we play a trick on them. Would you like to join in?”

“If you would not mind.” He hoped they wouldn’t - he was rather curious as to this explanation of Halloween, and he found himself reminded of his younger sister when looking at the group of children. Not to mention he would be lying if he said he didn’t think their escort was unusually attractive.

“You’ve gotta dress up though,” the girl with the green face paint told him. “Can’t trick-or-treat if you’re not dressed up.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything with me, though,” T’Challa confessed regretfully.

“That’s easily solved,” their escort told him with a grin, before taking off a backpack. “Gotta be prepared for any costume mishaps, after all! So while I work on a quick costume for our new friend here, how about you all introduce yourselves?”

And so T’Challa came to learn that the girl who had first spoken to him was called Ashley, and she was dressed up as an alien called Yoda. Next was her brother Harley, dressed up as a smuggler called Han Solo. Peter was dressed up as the hero, Luke Skywalker, and his best friend Ned was indeed a robot called C-3PO. The girl introduced herself only as ‘MJ’ and informed him that she was dressed up as the villain Darth Vader.

He was utterly unfamiliar with any of the characters, but he listened with interest as they explained all of it, smiling and nodding along and making mental notes.

As strange as all of this was, he found himself having the most fun he’d had his entire time in New York. “And that’s Tony - he watches us sometimes,” Harley explained, nodding at their escort. “We couldn’t decide if we wanted him to dress up as Leia or R2-D2, so because he’s a bit weird, he just went for both.”

“Hush, you,” Tony mumbled, not looking up from whatever he was doing. “You had five people to make a decision. Not my fault MJ agreed with me.”

“That’s ‘cause she’s also weird,” Ned stated.

Rather than being offended, MJ just shrugged. “He makes it work,” was all she said to that, which… T’Challa had to agree.

“Alright, got it!”

Whatever T’Challa had been expecting, it hadn’t been… something that looked like fur. Brown fur. “I, ah… Who am I supposed to be?” he asked, accepting the improvised mask.

The children, on the other hand, were all grinning brightly. “We’re gonna be complete!” Peter exclaimed happily.

“You’re Chewie!” Harley informed him, sounding just as elated as Peter. “He’s my best friend, and he’s _super_ strong, and also pretty smart. He’s a Wookie!”

He couldn’t really do anything but nod along. By now, he _had_ gathered that all of their costumes were from a film series called Star Wars but, Bast help him, he still hadn’t the _faintest_ idea what it was about beyond ‘space’.

Mentally, he thanked his darker skin for hiding his blush when Tony smiled happily at him. “I could show you the movies, if you’d like?”

That… almost sounded like an invitation to a date to T’Challa. And while he was not an expert on the intricacies of American courtship, the fact that _all_ of the children gasped and looked absolutely _thrilled_ made him think that might actually be the case.

Going out on a limb, he nodded. “I would be delighted to spend more time with you.”

Tony’s skin did not hide his blush nearly as well, but the happy look on his face let T’Challa know it was not a bad thing. When he smiled back, the blush became even more obvious, which was a _very_ good look on him.

So he followed along, watching them celebrate Halloween and listening to Tony explain to the children how the custom of trick-or-treating had originated with people, especially the less fortunate children, going door-to-door to receive soul cakes in return for prayers for the souls of the dead. Many believed that those souls wandered the earth, and the prayers would ideally help them ascend to Heaven.

“And the dressing up?” Ashley asked, her green ears a little askew on her head.

“Well,” Tony started, reaching out to gently adjust them, “that’s because the veil between this world and the other world is the thinnest at this time of the year. All of the things that reside in that other world, including the souls of the dead. There are also a lot of trickster faeries there, though and some _angry_ spirits. So in order to make sure they would be safe, people would dress up and put on masks so they could not be recognized.”

“And if we _want_ to be recognized?” Peter asked, and there was a pain there that had T’Challa wondering at the cause of it.

It was obvious that Tony had recognized that as well, because he knelt down in front of Peter and put his hands on his shoulders, an empathetic smile on his face. “Those with good intentions, those who _love_ us? To them, it won’t matter how many masks we put on, because they will _always_ know us.”

For a brief moment, Peter leaned into him, taking comfort from his presence. Then, showing a resilience that T’Challa could not help but respect deeply, he pulled right back and straightened up, at brave smile on his face. “That’s good, then.”

When the children had headed for another house, leaving Tony and T’Challa watching them from the street, he turned to the smaller man. “You’re very good with them.”

“I’m not doing anything special,” Tony shrugged it off. “Just talking to them like they’re somewhat smaller humans. Turns out they like that, and I like hanging out with them. Kids are smart in a whole different way, you know?” He did know that - his sister was the same, though T’Challa was starting to suspect she might be a bit smarter than your average six-year old. “And it helps their guardians get some time to themselves as well, so it’s a good deal all around.”

“Guardians?”

“Well, Peter lives with his aunt - both of his parents, as well as his uncle, died. That’s what earlier was about. Ned’s the only one with a conventional family situation, but both of his parents work a lot to keep a roof over their heads, so they don’t have as much time for him as they want to. Harley and Ashley’s dad took off, as did MJ’s, so… They’ve all got it rough in their own way. I’m just glad I can help out.”

“You may say it’s nothing special, but I daresay that to them, it probably is.”

It was quickly becoming clear that Tony was not very good at accepting compliments, because he just shrugged again before turning his attention to the children, who had received their candy and happily recounted the compliments they’d gotten on their costumes. Costumes that, from what T’Challa was hearing, they’d made themselves with Tony’s help.

“Yeah, you all did an _incredible_ job on those,” Tony complimented them, following them as they headed over to the next house. T’Challa followed, utterly charmed.

And with every house they visited, with every time the children excitedly called out ‘trick or treat’, with every compliment they got for their costumes that brightened their eyes, T’Challa found his attraction to Tony growing steadily deeper.

He did not think he regretted his visit to New York after all.

🎃 🕸 🕷 🦇 **Meet Me On All Hallows’ Eve** 🦇 🕷 🕸 🎃 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to come check out my [Tumblr](https://eirlyssa.tumblr.com/) as well!


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